It's not the years, it's the mileage
by Philyra
Summary: AU prompt fic: "You know who else doesn't really button up their shirt? Indiana Jones. And now I need that AU."
1. It's not the years, honey

She was in Syria, of course. Ground access for even the most hardcore journalists was difficult, if not impossible to come by, let alone the most enthusiastic of antiquities experts. However, this was no mere antiquities expert. This was the woman who'd talked her way into Iraq in the last year of her Ph.D., defying travel warnings, local attitudes, terrorist threats, and most of all, her supervisor in order to assess for herself the damage to the country's cultural heritage.

To say that Emma Swan was one hell of a woman was putting it mildly.

He stepped aside as a group of men carried their near-comatose friend out. He felt sorry for the poor sod but it was his own damn fault for challenging her to a drinking contest. Every postgraduate researcher in their department had known better than to try and match her drink for drink – or at least, they learned quickly. He'd discovered that early on over a bottle of the most god-awful moonshine, sitting on a truck bed in rural Azerbaijan.

Ah, the glories of archaeological fieldwork.

"Dr. Swan."

She barely glanced at him, accepting bet money and chatting with the disappointed onlookers in fast, fluent Arabic. It was only once they scattered that she granted him her full attention, smiling wryly as she pocketed the money. "Dr. Jones. I always knew our paths would cross again."

The warmer welcome should have tipped him off, honestly. Killian grinned. "Well, you know what they say love-"

He stopped short as a shot glass shattered perilously close to his head. "I wouldn't know what they say, since I haven't heard from _you _since graduation. What, you receive a British Academy fellowship at Cambridge and suddenly you're too good to keep in touch?"

"Swan, you know it wasn't like that," he said slowly, approaching her cautiously as she gathered up more empty glasses in a plastic crate. He really didn't need to be picking glass shards from his face. "Besides, you've a pretty prestigious fellowship yourself."

She snorted and pushed a blonde curl back from where it had escaped her headscarf. "Yeah, but the GHN isn't exactly paying me to do _this_." She jerked her head out towards the street. "Oh wait, they're not paying me at all."

"Hence fleecing the local men."

Emma shrugged. "I do what I have to, Jones. Social media monitoring isn't enough. The Internet is shit. My informants couldn't get me accurate reports on the level of damage to the sites and monuments, let alone an accurate site _list_. I need to be here, so here I am." Someone needed to compile a complete list of sites, accurately assess the damage, and recommend countermeasures so that the correct preservation procedures could be put in place.

"How are you getting your intel out, then?"

She slammed the container of glasses into the sink. "With difficulty."

"I could help with that."

"Yeah, I'm sure you could."

Killian settled next to her, hip to hip, mindful the way that she stilled ever so slightly before resuming her task. It had been like that between them from the beginning. Trigger to bomb and oh, how glorious the explosions. Perhaps that's why it had been so difficult for them to make it work. But they were kids then too, grad students with heads full of word counts, grant applications, fieldwork, conferences, and teaching. Other things had a habit of falling to the wayside.

He didn't admit to having too many regrets, but this was one. "Swan, you know I can."

Emma stopped and looked at him, really looked for the first time. She might not think highly of him at the moment, but he was a man of his word. "How?"

"A British Academy fellowship, a Cambridge postdoc, and a Leverhulme grant add up to lecturing posts, more grants, and most importantly, Swan, connections. You give me your information on site damage here, I promise I'll get it out."

"And what do you want in return?" she asked warily. Damn him for offering the one thing she really needed (well, an end to the conflict would have been preferable but she was nothing but a realist).

"Get me to the Forgotten Cities."

He wanted to get to one of her sites? "What do you want with the Ancient Villages?" She scowled. "Jones, I'm working to _protect _these sites from looters, if you so much as _try _one of your stupid little shenanigans, I'll-"

Killian sighed and quickly backed her up against the counter, noting that she still smelled like the sweetest kind of hell and yes, that fuse was still burning. "Swan, we both know that I'm not a looter. I've satellite images of trackways in the area and-"

"How do _you _have satellite footage of northern Syria?"

"Contacts," he reminded her pointedly. "I need to conduct a quick ground survey, that's all."

Emma pushed at his chest, the line between her eyebrows deepening when he wouldn't budge. "Jones, you got yourself here, surely you can get yourself to those trackways."

"Not easily. And I'll get the surveying done faster with another hand. Come on, Swan. We were a good team."

Her eyes softened, remembering months spent together on fieldwork and countless hours spent in the office, typing away like madmen and consuming record amounts of tea and coffee. She recalled another kind of partnership too, one of tangled hearts and bodies and oh, how she'd _burned. _"We were."

Killian's expression said that he was remembering, too. His gaze dropped to her lips and he moved in closer, his breath ghosting over her cheek, the proximity making both of them shudder. "We can be again."

He should have expected that right hook, too. It was still lethal. He rubbed his jaw gingerly and stooped to pick up his hat as Emma stalked past him. "Don't hold your breath, Jones. Just get my intel out and we'll call it a deal, all right?" Emma said as she strode out the door.

Gods above, he was still crazy about her.

* * *

Killian slammed the jeep's door shut and regarded the terrain with a critical and enthusiastic eye. "Let's find some trackways, eh Swan?"

Emma brushed past him, tucking her hair under a wide-brimmed hat. "Button up your shirt, Jones. Did you learn nothing from Kuwait? And I can't believe you've kept that damn ugly hat."

That was bullshit and they both knew it. She loved that hat. She loved him too, he just needed to get her to admit it. It was a good thing that he loved a challenge, and Emma Swan had been one – the _only _one – right from the start.

* * *

**Please review!**

Trackways are areas of the landscape that have been worn down over the years because of the movement of people and animals. They're not trails and they're not roads (no paving), and can be used to study things like interactions. Emma's work is based on a colleague who actually does monitor damage to cultural and historic sites in Syria (though not _in_ Syria). If you're curious, you can read about her work here and here.


	2. I have a bad feeling about this

__Disclaimer: I own nothing but the ideas rattling in my head!__

* * *

_Syria - Present_

Jones held out the GPS unit. "Do you want to go first?"

Emma shook her head, already scanning the ground surface. Fieldwalking was trickier than it seemed – it wasn't enough just to walk and stare at the ground. Artifacts could be small and the same color as the surrounding soil, and the smallest artifact could lead to the biggest sites (one could only hope). "Just keep us on target, Jones. We'll switch after tea break." She'd never been that much of a fan before she moved to England (and a hot chocolate with cinnamon was still her hot beverage of choice), but now she couldn't even make it through the day without a cuppa.

"That suits me." He booted up the unit and guided them over to the first section of land they had to survey. "Transect starts here."

The two of them walked in silence for the first few miles, only stopping when there was something to document. Trackways were usually not visible from the ground, especially when some of them could be several kilometers wide. No, they were searching for anything that was indicative of past human activity, from artifact scatters to possible habitation sites that were invisible on the satellite imagery. Emma found the first few features, including a small mound with bricks and sherds of pottery. "Nice find, Swan," he commented after he input that feature's coordinates into the GPS. "It looks like I was right about occupation in this area."

"Yeah, about that," she said warily as they moved on. "Are you starting a project here?"

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" was the nonchalant reply.

"This isn't even your study area, Jones." It felt like he was treading on her territory, even if they were studying completely different things (landscape studies for him, threat monitoring and cultural heritage management for her).

He snorted. "Pot, kettle, Swan. Both of us started in Iraq and Iran. Syria makes the most sense, doesn't it? Then you'll go on to Egypt and Tunisia, whilst I proceed into Anatolia. Besides," he continued as she clamped her mouth shut, frustrated that he'd hit the nail right on the head. "There's nothing wrong with broadening my horizons, especially when there's research funding on the line. They like it when you add other study areas for comparison, especially when it leads to inter-university collaboration."

Oh, she really wanted to smack him. He sounded so pompous, so utterly unlike the man who'd flipped out when he discovered a scorpion in his trench on excavation. "Oh yeah? It sounds like you and Cambridge are getting along just _great_."

The silence stretched between them for a long moment as they walked, each stride in perfect unison. "It's a beautiful city, Swan. But it's not the same. Not without you."

That did it. He was not allowed to talk that way. She'd been so _happy_ for him when he received the British Academy fellowship after the PhD because those kinds of opportunities didn't grow on trees. She'd received the Global Heritage Network fellowship around the same time and they talked endlessly about how they were going to make it work, but then he'd received an offer to work in Mongolia to consult on an unrelated project and that was it. He would be gone for half a year with the option of deferring the start of the BA fellowship. There was no deferment option for Emma, and Syria needed her more than she needed to wait around for some idiotic Irishman. "Oh, go to hell," Emma spat, feeling the edges of her control fraying. This was a horrible idea. She must have been out of her mind to say yes, but now she was irrevocably stuck with him because she needed him to get her job done.

Well, no one ever said that work was pleasant.

Jones stopped walking and regarded her with eyes the same color as the sun-bleached sky above them and filled with a mixture of regret and consternation. "Now Swan-"

"You know what, Jones? This is going to go much better for the both of us if we just don't talk." The words fell from her lips, chipped and frozen, in stark contrast to the desert heat around them. Together, the two of them were a volatile mixture. Perhaps that had worked when they were students, but not anymore. She wanted more stability, and a relationship couldn't work if both halves of the pair were constantly flitting away. In truth, she didn't have to be on the ground to monitor sites, but she couldn't be the only one making the sacrifices. "I'm going for my break now."

Emma stalked away, ignoring him as he called after her. She couldn't help but think perhaps she should have carried on ignoring him, all those years ago.

* * *

_Azerbaijan – Four years earlier_

"You know you're never going to make friends this way."

"Who says I want to make friends?" Emma had been hiding out on the truck bed for that very reason. Fieldwork often meant close quarters, she knew that, but her current situation was downright ridiculous. Ten people, one apartment, one _bathroom_, two months. Those factors weren't an issue during the day, but at night? The crew wanted to unwind and that meant gossiping. Poking.

Emma was having none of that. That was why she'd taken to disappearing after dinner and only came back when she knew that people were drifting off to bed. Luckily that didn't take too long, considering long work hours. Most people tended to crash around nine o'clock.

Most people. Not Killian Jones.

"That's harsh," he commented. "Considering that most of us are in the same department and half of us have the same supervisor. And in case you hadn't realized, our supervisor is here as well. Are you saying that you don't want to be friends with him?" As he spoke, he climbed in beside her without so much as a by-your-leave.

Emma twitched in irritation. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," was the cheerful reply. "Seriously, Swan, you're stuck with the lot of us for the next two months, if not the next three years. Do you really expect not to know us?"

"I didn't know that social skills were a prerequisite for a PhD," she retorted.

"You've seen some of the staff in the department, you know that's not true. Still, it never hurts, does it?" He pulled a bottle of clear liquid out of his jacket and offered it to her. "Come on, Swan, drink with me. You can't argue with tradition. We're on fieldwork – where we're walking ten bloody miles per day on survey, I might add. I think a drink is warranted."

Emma accepted the bottle despite herself, opened it, and took a curious sniff. "This smells like turpentine."

"I think your lot calls it moonshine." His eyes, dark now under the country night sky, glinted with challenge. "Care to give it a go?"

"Now why would I do that?" She looked pointedly from him to the bottle.

Jones' expression was comically affronted. "I resent that implication, Swan. I can assure you, I would never doctor alcohol. I like my partners to be _willing._"

"Uh-huh. Do I look willing right now, Jones?"

There was a long pause as he just looked at her. Emma fought the urge to squirm under that suddenly knowing gaze. "No, Swan," he replied softly. "Just lonely."

She definitely didn't like how this was going. She was used to people overlooking her, dismissing her (leaving her), but not seeing her. "Fine." She took a long swig from the bottle, managed not to gag, and handed it back to him. "Your turn."

He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but shrugged and knocked it back just as she did. "There now, is that so bad?"

"If you're talking about the moonshine, it's terrible."

"Feeling it already, Swan?"

Emma looked at him with pity. He had no idea what he was in for. "I'm not going to be the one feeling things, Jones."

"Ooooh. I love a challenge."

The laugh just bubbled out, surprising the both of them. Okay, he was nuts. But the good kind of nuts. "You're not going to like this challenge, trust me."

"We'll see about that," he declared.

* * *

_Syria – Present_

Emma shook herself out of that memory, though traces of it lingered, tinged with the clear burn of the moonshine and the faint sound of drinking songs fading into the night. She huffed with frustration and climbed into the jeep to find her thermos of strong, black, milky tea. Hydration was essential in fieldwork, but there were times when one needed something a little bit more substantial than water or Gatorade.

Movement in the distance caught her eye. She frowned and checked the rearview mirror. Dust clouds gathered on the horizon and the sun flashed off metal. "_Shit_," she swore, and slammed the door behind her as she turned on the engine. She tore down the bluff, gritting her teeth as the vehicle jolted, and went straight for Jones, who was still making his slow, ambling way to where they had been parked.

She jerked to a stop beside him. "Swan, what the bloody-" he began as he threw open the door.

"Get your ass in here Jones, I really don't have time to explain."

Luckily, he complied and climbed in. "I don't suppose your perusal of the satellite images yielded any useful information on possible hideouts, did they?" she inquired as she peeled away.

His brow furrowed. "Why?"

Emma jerked her chin over her shoulder. "_That's_ why."

Jones followed her gaze and released an impressive spat of epithets when he caught sight of the convoy in the distance. "Is that-"

"Rebels or military. It doesn't bode well for us either way." She pulled them along a series of hillocks, hoping that the variation in elevation would hide them. "Find us a place to go to ground, and I swear to god, Jones, if you say that this is an adventure I'm going to leave you behind."

He bit his lip, because that was _exactly _what he was going to say. "I'm on it, Swan."

* * *

**Please review!**

Agh. I've been trying to work on the next chapter of _steady hands_ but my latest thesis chapter is killing pretty much everything related to that (results are so boring to write). But then this happened. :) And you guys thought I wasn't going to continue this!


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